I awoke, only to find my lungs empty
by Vasheren
Summary: This was the time of night Sherlock liked the best, and John was Sherlock's favourite thing to study during the sleeping hours.
1. Chapter 1

It was this time of night that Sherlock liked best.

London quieted down slightly for the evening, the sound of cars impatiently barreling through the streets diminishing somewhat, the noise of pedestrians and friends dissolving altogether. The lights of the city turned down just enough to see the blackness of the sky, but not quite enough to see the stars. The air was slightly cooler, and somewhere out there, criminals were doing bad deeds. In the cover of darkness, men and women were murdering, stealing, kidnapping. Night time.

However, as much as Sherlock appreciated(appreciated? Bit not good, Sherlock, said the John's voice in his head) these actions, as one of the hundreds that occurred may actually give him a challenge, allow him to stretch his brain, it was not because of the criminals that Sherlock enjoyed this part of the evening.

It was the time of night that Doctor John Watson entered REM sleep, and Sherlock's newfound favourite thing to do at night was to watch the Doctor in this state.

John would get up from his chair at approximately ten o'clock each night, put down his glass of water, stretch slightly, the sweater of the day riding up his stomach a few inches, his eyes squeezing shut as he yawned, and then:

"Well, off to bed."

Sherlock would nod from the window, where he would be poised with his violin, contemplating playing a Schubert or perhaps something more complicated. "Good night, John." He wouldn't turn around.

John would nod in return, even though knowing Sherlock couldn't see, and would leave the room. Sherlock would listen to his footsteps creak around the apartment, in the bathroom, his bedroom, the bathroom again, until the squeaking of the bedsprings indicated the man's descent into bed at ten-fifteen.

Sherlock would choose the Schubert, or the Bach, or the Rachmaninoff, it really didn't matter, but soon enough he was sending John to sleep in a sweet lullaby of notes, expertly played, expertly timed.

Sherlock would play until eleven-fifteen, when an exhausted John would slip from stage 4 sleep into REM sleep, and in response Sherlock would gently place his violin on the coffee table. Sherlock would be in John's room seconds later, his nimble movements and knowledge of which floorboards to avoid stepping on allowing him to sneak into the room unnoticed.

The dark-haired man padded forward, his feet sticking to the floorboards in the way that only bare skin can- silently. He crept up to the side of the bed and slowly, so slowly, sat down. John tended to sleep off to one side of the bed, no doubt a habit picked up from his various nights out with gallivanting with women. But he nearly always slept on his back, as though he couldn't bear to face away from what was before him. Facing forwards, forever facing forwards, and remaining positive. John.

Sherlock would remember how tense and uneasy John's REM sleep had been when he first moved in with Sherlock; John had been fidgety, had mumbled under his breath as he dreamed of war and of death, and sometimes he would jerk himself awake in his moving around, and Sherlock would dive to the floor, listening to John's ragged, pained breaths. Eventually the man would wipe a sleeve across his brow and then lay back down, surrendering once more to tormented dreams. Sherlock would come back to the edge of the bed and watch his new friend sleep once again, fascinated by the expressions playing across John's face while his eyes remained shut.

Eventually, though, as his time with Sherlock grew in the waking hours, John's terrible dreams seemed to melt away. He began sleeping through the whole night, his fidgeting gradually lessened, and after a month he no longer mumbled to his dead comrades. Sherlock was just as intrigued by watching John sleep as he was before; the change in John's sleeping dynamics did not bore him in the slightest. There were different things to notice now that the panic was gone. Things like the way John's fingers would curl and a smile would spread across his face as something good happened in a dream, or the way he would sigh slightly and roll over on occasion, more often than not toward Sherlock.

After almost two years, Sherlock still watched John for several hours a night, his friend an endless source of interest for him. Over the past few months, however, things had changed ever so slightly; John had taken to whispering Sherlock's name in his sleep once every few nights. Sometimes it was a low mumble, a reprimand against something his dream Sherlock was doing, and to those the real Sherlock would smile, only imagining what he had done to deserve John's chastising. Other times John would say Sherlock's name and sigh a long, desperate exhale directly afterward, and to this Sherlock had no proper reaction. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of it—familial? Romantic?

Sherlock had also taken to holding John's hand for a good part of his visits.

He did so now, reaching forward and sliding his fingers through John's hand, resting calmly beside its sleeping owner. Sherlock played with the callouses on John's fingertips, left over from the war, or perhaps the many years of rugby the man had played before he had met Sherlock.

As Sherlock rolled John's fingers lightly in his own, John sighed and smiled, mumbling Sherlock's name and nestling further under his covers, his fingers curling forwards slightly, trapping Sherlock's fingers together with his.

It was at these moments that Sherlock's heart would start beating irrationally fast, and his normally pallid cheeks would flood with heat. He would find himself smiling as well, feeling the strange ache in his heart and wondering why he wasn't grimacing at it.

Sherlock was no idiot. He was not going to even try to pretend he had no clue what was going on—that only happened in stories. He was clearly attracted to John, so hearing John say his name with such adoration was bound to make him pleased. Sherlock never really bothered with a sexual identity crisis—he didn't seem to have a preference for either men or women, so when his feelings for John made themselves apparent he did not have a meltdown, he did not need a counselor, he was not insecure.

He had not been lying when he said he was married to his work, however; just because he was attracted to John it did not mean he wanted a relationship. He was quite content with their current arrangement. Sherlock's late-night escapes into John's room were all the sappy time he required. John's soft whisper of his name was all Sherlock really needed.

A few weeks ago he had fallen asleep during one of his nights visiting John. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, as always, but something inside of him twitched and then he was lying next to John, watching the shorter man breathe, his face now only inches away. Sherlock had watched him, his heart thudding painfully in his ears, until suddenly it was morning, and light was streaming in through John's thin curtains. Sherlock had sat up in surprise and panic, prepared to explain himself in his usual manner of feigned indifference, but John simply remained asleep, a small frown on his face as cooler air met the side of his body Sherlock had been lying beside. Sherlock practically ran from the room, and later at breakfast, John seemed normal, so Sherlock assumed the man had not woken up and discovered him during the night.

Sherlock couldn't remember the last time he had gotten such good rest.

Now, he glanced down at John's sheets and felt a delicious pull to be lying on them once again, to feel John beside him as he slept, warm and comforting.

Sherlock knew something was going to happen to him soon. Things were quickly spiraling downward, as Moriarty planned they would, and Sherlock could only see darkness at the end of the tunnel. Would he be around for much longer? How many more of these nights were there left?

John sighed rolled over to his back once again, his eyebrows coming together in an almost worrying expression.

John was alone.

He was all alone.

Sherlock was gone. Had left him. Had jumped from that roof and plummeted to his death, his head had cracked against the ground, his beautiful, beautiful mind bleeding onto the pavement below. His eyes open, lifeless, staring into nothing as John flipped him over, agonized moans spilling from John's lips as he beheld his dead friend. John's head had been spinning, he had been seeing in double, it just wasn't possible he was gone.

But it was. Sherlock Holmes had been dead for three months. He hadn't burst through the door of 221B Baker Street after the ceremony, a whirlwind of coat and dark hair, apologizing. He hadn't been at the hospital, he hadn't been at the Scotland Yard, he hadn't been at the café. Sherlock remained gone as the days went by, and John was alone.

It was horrible, far worse than when John had returned from Afghanistan, the visions of his fellow troops stepping on mines and getting shot down in favour of Sherlock's pale, lifeless, blood-soaked face haunting his dreams. He twisted and turned in his sheets at night, crying out for Sherlock as his eyes moved under his closed lids, watching as Sherlock plummeted through the air like a fallen angel, dark and beautiful.

He had never told Sherlock that he had woken in the middle of the night to find the man asleep beside him on the bed.

John wished he had, wished he had confessed to Sherlock the next morning, but if he was being entirely honest with himself, he wasn't sure it had even happened. John had awoken to find Sherlock lying next to him, fast asleep, a small frown on his face. John stared at him, barely breathing, his mind sluggishly trying to understand why Sherlock was in _his _bed. Too tired to really try and figure it out or to be suitably annoyed that Sherlock had kipped out in his room, John had decided to go back to sleep. He was out again in seconds, Sherlock's strangely soothing warm body beside him, their hands resting a few centimetres apart on the sheets.

When John awoke again in the morning, Sherlock was gone, and John was confused. Had it…actually happened? Maybe John had dreamed the whole thing—he was far too well-rested to have woken up in the middle of the night. When he came down for breakfast, Sherlock was exactly the same as always, and John had no idea what to think. He decided to put it from his mind as more pressing matters invaded their lives in the form of Moriarty.

But now that Sherlock was dead(dead, actually dead, Sherlock), all the moments he had spent with his best friend were replaying in John's mind on a near-constant basis, making his chest ache with longing. John wished he had cherished those moments more as they were happening—after all, he would never get any more of them. He decided with a sudden clear conviction that Sherlock had indeed slept in John's bed that night, if only to add to his memories of the man, give John more to remember.

He clung to Sherlock as the days went by. Despite what everyone thought would happen, John spent all his time at their apartment in Baker Street, sitting in his chair, smelling Sherlock everywhere around him, hoping it would fill the void in his chest. John would talk to him, tell him off, even crack a smile when Sherlock was acting particularly childish. He knew Sherlock wasn't really there, but if he closed his eyes and just breathed, he could almost feel him. Feel the excitement, the danger, the allure that was Sherlock, for even just a few seconds.

John just needed to make it through the day until he could sleep again, when he could abandon life for a few short hours. His horrible dreams would wake him, but if he was lucky, he could get a pleasant dream, where he was actually with Sherlock and not imagining it. In those dreams Sherlock was alive.

One night, three months to the day of Sherlock's death, John had a particularly good sleep. His dreams were pleasant and happy; he and Sherlock working, he and Sherlock eating at their café, Sherlock playing the violin to get Mycroft to leave the room, happy things. He didn't have a single nightmare, and when he awoke the next morning, he felt completely well-rested and almost… content. He hadn't felt so refreshed in months, basically since the night—

John's eyes widened fractionally as a desperate, horrible hope emerged in his chest. He quickly glanced over to the other side of the bed, breath stuck in his throat. On the pillow beside his rested a single black hair, long and slightly curled. The pillow was indented. John rested a hand on the mattress beside him, and the sheets were warm.

The breath that had been stuck in John's throat ripped out him in a dry sob and his hand fisted into the warm sheets, fingers flexing and shaking into the fabric. He sank down into the sheets and breathed, and they smelled like him, Sherlock, like soap and cigarette smoke and blood and John began to sob, his tears staining the sheets because for the first time in months, his pleading and hoping had pulled through. Sherlock was alive.

John wasn't alone.

* * *

><p><em>Hi guys, just want to say that if anyone's interested in me writing a follow-up to this, let me know. If enough people are for it I'll write a little more for this story, maybe like a reunion scene or something similar :) Also the title is from the City and Colour song Sleeping Sickness.<em>


	2. so it seems that I'm not breathing

_All right, due to the amount of "yes, write an epilogue"s I got on this site and on archiveofourown, here you go! :D It was meant to be even shorter than the first part, but it ended up being almost the same length. Whoops! Enjoy!_

* * *

><p>Mary breathed deeply, her long eyelashes fluttering as her eyes flickered under closed lids, and she let out a small noise of contentment in her sleep. Her long, brown hair was spread about her pillow, encasing her head in a dark halo. The morning sun set her hair glowing. One hand sat next to her head, palm up, the other disappeared under the heavy blankets covering her and John. John searched under them and clasped her hand in his, running his thumb across the back of her hand softly. Her skin was smooth and warm, and John sighed as a pair of flashing, ice-blue eyes in his memory made gooseflesh erupt over his skin.<p>

It was never just Mary.

John could never just have a nice, pleasant morning with his wife. John loved Mary, this was no question.

But he was always there, in the back of John's mind, an echo that wouldn't fade into obscurity.

"John?" Mary's eyes opened slowly, a sleepy smile stretching her full lips attractively. John scooted closer to her and gave her a morning kiss, letting his lips linger against hers.

"Good morning." John replied.

"Why were you staring at me?" Mary asked, closing her eyes again as she snuggled further under the covers.

_You were comparing her to me._ John ignored him.

"Just admiring the beautiful sight." John said sweetly, and Mary gave a sharp laugh.

"Oh, that's bollox. You're probably hungry, aren't you?"

John wondered sometimes if it would be easier had Sherlock actually died.

XxxxX

But no, that wasn't right. John knew all too well what life had been like when Sherlock _had_ been dead. Three months of emptiness, of anguish, cold bed sheets and aching. The knowledge that Sherlock had been alive had _revived_ John. He climbed out of bed, he cleaned the apartment, he got a job, and he carried on. Because all was not lost—Sherlock was alive.

John had spent his days furious. How could Sherlock do something like that? No, this was Sherlock, of course he could do something as elaborate as faking his own death and neglect to tell those that cared about him. Of course he could. He was a robot—he had no emotions. That was the only explanation, and John had been a fool for wasting his own feelings on the man. Sherlock couldn't understand the concept of friendship. He couldn't understand how it feels to watch someone you care die before your very eyes. When Sherlock turned up again, as he was bound to, John would let him know very clearly that he was never to see John again. John wanted to _hurt _Sherlock; he wanted to grab him by the ridiculous collar of his coat and punch him senseless until the blood ran from his face. He wanted to damage Sherlock as badly as he had damaged John. Sherlock had crossed the line, and John was far beyond forgiving him.

John had spent his nights longing. He would lie on the left side of the bed, his arm outstretched towards the right side of the bed, wishing for Sherlock to come. Hoping to wake up to the warmth that only a body can bring, Sherlock's body. He assumed Sherlock had a reason for not coming home; but all the same, it didn't stop John from wanting him there. John missed him; missed the chase, missed the intrigue, missed the verbal sparring. He missed Sherlock's grating violin playing at one in the morning. He missed, knowing full well how strange it was, finding fingers in the yogurt container in the fridge. He missed Sherlock's scent, he missed the way Sherlock's eyes would pierce right through him, he missed seeing the long, dark coat in his peripherals. More often than John would care to admit, he missed Sherlock's touch; long fingers clasping around his wrist, a gentle hand on his shoulder, the irritated flip of an exposed tag into the collar of John's jumper. Sometimes John would fall asleep thinking of Sherlock's touch and awaken gasping and shaking, from strangely erotic dreams involving said touch. He had absolutely no explanation for those dreams, and once they were over, he put them from his mind.

John spent an entire year this way, loathing the very name of Sherlock Holmes during the day, his hatred for the man allowing him to carry on, meanwhile basking in the memories of him during the night, the warm thoughts of him allowing John to sleep.

He met Mary at the end of that year, and he was instantly smitten. She was soft, simple, and calm—exactly what John needed. Sherlock was a small, pale memory in the back of his mind, talking to him at times throughout their courtship. He exuded _wrong_, as though John's actions somehow displeased him. Mary and John were married within a few months. They got a small flat in Cardiff, John calling Mycroft in for a favour to preserve 221B Baker Street the exact way he had left it. When Mycroft had asked why, John had simply left the room.

Life with Mary was exactly what a new marriage should be like. They laughed, they dined, they had lots of sex. John told himself he was extremely happy.

Sometimes Mary would catch John with his arm outstretched to the right side of the bed when she wasn't in it. He would laugh and say he missed her when she wasn't there.

She also noticed that whenever they went out(dancing, dinner, walk in the park), John was constantly craning his neck and looking around, his eyes darting past countless faces, searching. He would stop whenever he noticed her watching him, and they would carry on.

John kept living his life…but if he was being honest with himself, he was mostly just waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Three years from Sherlock's death John had absolutely no idea what he would even do if he saw the man again. Three years was even longer than they had been together. Sherlock had been in his life such a short, short time, but that was all it took for John to be completely intertwined with him. His life was no longer just his—it was interwoven with Sherlock's, and since half of him was gone he just felt _wrong._

_Where are you, Sherlock? When will I have to stop waiting to ruin you like you've ruined me?_

It happened in the most banal of places.

John was sitting in a window seat in a nondescript café in Cardiff one grey spring morning, staring out into the fogs of the streets with little interest. Mary was visiting a friend, and John, being alone at the flat for longer than ten minutes, got bored. He decided to get some tea outside of the flat.

Nothing remotely unique or intriguing at all about the morning. It was no novel; they did not meet in some significant area, like the pool or in a taxi or at their flat in Baker Street. There was no sun parting the clouds to reveal Sherlock walking towards John accompanied by a string quartet softly in the background.

John was staring out the window, and Sherlock simply walked by the café.

He was wearing a cap and a short brown coat with jeans, but as soon as he locked eyes with John, there was no mistaking him.

Sherlock strode by the café, hands crammed in his pockets, looking at John from above a flipped up collar. The two retained eye contact for as long as it took Sherlock to walk past the window and disappear, and John was out of his seat. Heart positively slamming in his chest, he burst from the café and watched as the brown coat swiftly turned the corner of the building into an alleyway. John pushed past a couple on the sidewalk, not even bothering to apologize as the two stumbled from his haste. He skidded into the alley, breath stuck in his throat, his chest aching, to see Sherlock standing in the direct centre of the alley.

His eyes bored into John's, their ice-blue penetrating the thick grey of the morning as John strode to him. Sherlock reached up and slipped off his cap, freeing his characteristic dark curls and allowing them to fall onto his forehead. John stopped two feet away from him, hands clenched at his sides.

The two simply looked at each other. John drank him in, every detail, and in a sad twist he was sure Sherlock would be proud of him for the amount of the man John was _seeing_. Sherlock's skin was pale, it was always pale, but it looked almost sickly. It stretched tightly across his bones, especially across his face, only emphasizing his normally prominent cheekbones even further. His clothing hung off of him—John surmised that when Sherlock had purchased the clothing (months ago, judging by the state of the hems at his sleeves) they had fit him snugly. He had clearly lost weight. John had not been there to make him eat.

His hair was a bit longer than usual, suggesting that he was unable to maintain regular haircut appointments. He had been on the run, then.

There was a fading bruise around his neck. He had been fighting. Recently.

John came back to Sherlock's eyes. They were steely; the pale blue swam with intelligence, and John knew he was thinking very, very hard on what to say. The fact that he hadn't planned it beforehand told John this had been a spur of the moment thing.

John realized he would have to speak first.

He took a deep breath, hoping to relieve the tight ache in his chest somewhat, and then he was grabbing onto the fabric of Sherlock's jacket, pulling him to his body. John caught the scent of gunpowder and blood before smashing his lips to Sherlock's.

The taller man inhaled sharply, and there was a small, desperate hum accompanying it as John pushed his lips to his, moving his hands from Sherlock's coat to his face. John kissed him, forcing his lips onto Sherlock's as roughly as he could, moving them together in a warm slide, and he pressed his hands into Sherlock's face, the tips of his fingers brushing against curling hair. Sherlock's hands wrapped around John's back as John's teeth bit, hard, on his lower lip. His hands pushed into Sherlock's thick hair and pulled, causing the man to hiss in pain against John's lips. John's skin was burning, and he was still aching, he needed to _fix _this. John thrust his tongue into Sherlock's mouth, focused too hard on just _pushing_ Sherlock to care about breathing through his nose. Their tongues moved slickly, they were both gasping for air but were unwilling to break away to obtain it, and John's face was wet.

Moving his hands from Sherlock's hair back to the front of his coat, John shoved Sherlock away from him as hard as he could. Sherlock stumbled back, and before he could straighten himself up again John was back, grabbing him forwards and bringing him in for another bruising kiss, all teeth and bite, which mellowed back into something soft when the two were gasping once again, and damn it John's face was wet again, why couldn't he _stop_—

John pulled away and curled his hand into a fist, slamming it into the side of Sherlock's face without holding back. Sherlock sprawled to the ground, blood quickly running out of his nose and over his kiss-swollen lips. He breathed deeply through his mouth, clearly holding back a groan of pain, spitting blood as it ran into his mouth without permission.

John stood before him, panting, realizing that they had both been crying as fresh clear trails ran down the sides of Sherlock's face as identical ones cooled on John's.

There were so many colours. Reds, blues, browns—they had come back. And it was overwhelming.

He was moving forward, and suddenly he was kneeling down to the filthy ground beside Sherlock, shaking, and Sherlock tentatively reached out for him. John let out an involuntary sob before wrapping his arms around Sherlock's torso, crying out and pressing his face into Sherlock's thin shoulder. Sherlock held him tightly, despite his own arms and torso quivering. He rested the good side of his face onto John's head, blood still freely flowing, now into John's hair, and it was _right._

XxxX

John rolled over, unable to sleep.

Sighing, he sat up and kicked off the covers, the cool night air making his bare legs ripple with gooseflesh. He strode towards the bedroom door and pulled it open, stepping out into the familiar hallway, making his footsteps loud and clear as he made his way to the living room. By the time he arrived, Sherlock had placed down his violin and was walking towards John.

"Yes." He said, and the two made their way back to their bedroom.

Once inside, John closed the door and slid back under the still-warm covers of their bed, taking up the left side. Sherlock shed his silken housecoat and joined him there, on the right side. They faced each other under the covers, and Sherlock slipped his hand into John's. A certain calmness came over him, and John slipped into sleep, a pair of softened blue eyes watching him in quiet affection. Sherlock pressed his forehead against John's, breathing him in before succumbing to slumber as well, their fingers interwoven under the sheets.


End file.
